In the 45th edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, on 11 and 12 June 1977, an Alpine A310 participated in the race with Bernard Decure, Jacky Cauchy and Jean-Luc Therien at the wheel, framed within the category of prototypes (GTP). At least as curious rather the car should have competed more on the GT class.
Originally it was a 4-cylinder model that was modified to fit a V6 engine and had a few "minor" changes in the bodywork, front spoiler, rear wing and flared wheel arches. The car did not finish the race and left after 17 hours and 137 laps by a water leak. Those who already the race, and also in first position, were Jürgen Barth, Hurley Haywood and Jacky Ickx onboard a Martini Racing Team Porsche 936/77.

This is the car I´m talkig about. Photos are taken from the forum forum-auto.com

To make the model I delivery form a resin bodyshell that had in his catalog the hobbyaescala people, although I bought it to Carlos, the author of this very good reproduction. The model the kit reproduces doesn´t correspond with which I´m going to do, but with the "Calberson" Gr.4 model which led by Guy Frequelin and Jacques Delaval won the French championship in 1977.

This is a picture of complete kit:

I didn´t to make the model kit because I didn´t get the decals for it and as I had to manufacture them I prefer to do a less shown decoration, and if in addition to being less known it is a Le Mans decoration better. That if I recognize that "Calberson" decoration is very beautiful and suits fine to the car.

The body that came with the kit had enough resin burrs, mainly the bottom, a large number of pores, which while not very big, they forced me to give putty to the entire body fix those imperfections. So before start anything serious, I sand the body a little to remove some bugs from the mold and leave it more decent. Then I adapted the chassis.

The recommended chassis for this kit was that the Ninco 307 one, it had almost the same wheelbase as the Alpine, but I had at home the chassis of a Spirit Ferrari 512 going around and luckily has a similar wheelbase measure. In addition, having transverse rear engine allows me to do a more detailed interior tray that the simply drivers tray.
The wheelbase was an inch shorter so I must to change the front axle support. Besides the support of the rear axle was a little high and had to lower it to gain a little distance from the chassis to the track and to place right the rear axle.

The joint to the body is made with two evergreen lugs attached with bicomponent glue.

...to be continued...

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